Here you are complaining about "cartels" and "price rigging" and "griefing" in a game you clearly haven't actually played, and you believe that Star Citizen—a game that's a year and half away from release—will be a carbon copy of it.
As it stands? Of course because let me see.
Production is handled by factories, now the entire thing is handled by NPCs until players step in, meaning the manufacturing (crafting) is expected to be handled by players that begs the question of if players are manufacturing (crafting) then who sets the prices?
I suspect players, now in any MMO there is something that invariable happens, inflation so about 2-3 months expect everything costing 300-400% what it originally cost, this leads to a system that just makes it unfriendly to new players because they simply are forced out of the loop and cannot afford basic equipment because those prices are set by players.
If not by players then what would be the point, the whole thing seems to detract from the game that is a space trading as it pushes into being a industrialist, meaning instead of being on your ship moving cargo around and exploring you are on a desk looking at the factory production, keeping your employers happy and all that.
As for grieving ... please last I heard it have a permanent death system and now you are going to talk about inheritances that is quite frankly not the main problem, if inheritances ultimate make death irrelevant (as you never lose anything) then why have death at all, its just a attempt at realism or I suspect selling lives on the Cash Shop for people that dont want to lose their character?
And since I didnt address grieving ... if you eject before the ship is destroyed then you are only rescued after enemies are gone, meaning anyone can be a dick enough to say "pay me or I will stay here" or in fact just blow you up even if you pay up, now I assume insurance only covers ship hull meaning everything else you happen to have on it (cargo, modules) is lost, I suppose that could also be in insurance but this makes things easier for griefing because they can just blow up "noobs", sell that gear and if they die ... well, "inheritance", unless that is not covered if players reach a certain negative reputation but still that just becomes a numbers game when you go just as far and then die to reset reputation or raise it back.
Completely valid concerns, I see your point.
Look the thing wants to be too many things at once, nothing scares me more that "player driven economy" because those never work, just look at Age of Wushu.
Sure its a year and a half from launch and I hope a lot of those ideas just die, Chris Roberts is saying "this is a game for everyone" BUT then put things behind PvP, Guilds, makes the en tire economy revolve around crafting and that is certainly not for everyone, I cannot pick a ship and just go ferry cargo without having it to sell it to another player, having to buy it from another player, fly around without the chance of some dipship blowing up my ship and of course without losing my character because realism.
It cannot be everything, it cannot be Solo friendly, Guild friendly, roleplaying friendly, PvE friendly and PvPer friendly ... it have to pick a side and all I am hearing is EVE, its mandatory PvP, its not solo friendly and it have permanent death.
Will it be EVE with a joystick? MAYBE because that is what it looks to me from interviews.
.
